Service Manager - Family Help and Safeguarding

Full Time, Permanent

Are you passionate about making a positive impact on the lives of children and safeguarding their future?

We are seeking an experienced senior leader and manager who can join Bristol’s Children and Education Senior Leadership Team as the Service Manager for our East Central Neighbourhood Teams, providing leadership, management and support to deliver high-quality services for children and families.

As Service Manager, you will play a crucial role in modelling, developing and managing the Neighbourhood services for children and families.  

You will lead and manage the service closely with your Deputy Service Managers to ensure timely, effective interventions for children and families.

You will lead the safeguarding teams, family help teams, our parenting offer, and our youth and participation work to deliver effective and intensive interventions for children and families.

In addition to leading and managing operational teams, you will be part of a strong and committed senior leadership team who move forward strategic development, where our communities are at the centre of our vision. 

You will manage the budgets, workforce, and performance, while upholding the highest standards of practice.  

We are delighted to be moving our services forward in the upcoming year to reflect the Families First National Reforms, so that we can support children and families at the earliest point, whilst also providing intensive support to children and families when they need it, whether this be at a family help level requiring additional multi agency support or a specialist help level where children and families need that intensive intervention or for children in our care.  

Our neighbourhood model and our specialist teams enable our family support workers, key workers and social workers to have the recommended number of children allocated to them to enable them to deliver intensive support whilst also being supported by our new specialist teams when there is harm outside the home and or a child is at risk of needing to come into our care.  

We continue to aim to be the best that we can as we move forward, building on the brilliant work our teams do with children and their families, creating the conditions for our teams to feel supported, have the time they need to work intensively with children and families, access good training, feel psychologically safe and listened too, whilst experiencing healthy challenge to thrive in their roles in our joint vision with children and families. We will continue our commitment of working with integrity, honesty, kindness, transparency, collaboration and family led decision making as we build on what we do well and learn together to develop our work further. 

If you are a dedicated manager/leader with a commitment to improving the lives of vulnerable children and families, we would love to hear from you.

Please note that this role is subject to an Enhanced DBS Check.

Why Bristol City Council?

At Bristol City Council, we go that extra mile for our people; we offer a work environment which is fast moving and supportive, giving you the chance to use your skills and develop new ones within a high-profile organisation. For the majority of our roles hybrid working arrangements are available, giving teams the opportunity to work in a way that suits them, balancing service need and individual choice - mixing both home and office working.

Join us and you’ll receive an excellent rewards package including flexible working and flexitime, membership of the Local Government Pension scheme, and a generous annual leave allowance. In addition, you’ll be working in a supportive environment where you’ll have the chance to make Bristol a better place and contribute to its future.

How do I apply?

If you share our values and are ready to be part of our exciting journey please select the apply button below.

To be shortlisted for interview you’ll need to demonstrate how you meet each of the essential criteria in the Person Specification within the Further Information section of your application. On occasion we will receive high numbers of applications, we may then shortlist against the desirable criteria along with the essential criteria, so if you can, please demonstrate how you meet this in your application.

We're a Disability Confident employer which means we value recruiting and retaining disabled people. Any job applicants who consider themselves to be disabled and meet the essential criteria in the Person Specification are guaranteed an interview. We'll make reasonable adjustments throughout the interview process and provide continued workplace support throughout your career.

For further information, please refer to the Job Description and Person Specification or alternatively, please contact Tara Parsons tara.parsons@bristol.gov.uk

At Bristol City Council, we value having a workforce as diverse as the city we serve. We therefore welcome, develop and promote people from all sections of the community. Appointments will be made on merit.

The personal information section (including your name) you’ll complete as part of the application form will not be visible to hiring managers, but is used confidentially to make sure that everyone is treated fairly.